and a major foe of Social Security.
Here are some excerpts from an article by Dean Baker published in Alternet in 2007:
Fifteen years ago, Peter Peterson used some of the immense wealth he had accumulated as an investment banker to create and bankroll the Concord Coalition. The Concord Coalition was designed as a bipartisan organization promoting fiscal responsibility, with its primary targets being Social Security and Medicare. Peterson and his crew put out screeds, with titles like "Grey Dawn," that attacked these programs and warned that the growing wave of elderly would bankrupt the country.
Like most of the granny bashers, Peterson routinely played fast and loose with the facts. For example, while warning about the poverty facing future generations, he suggested cutting the annual Social Security cost of living adjustment because the official consumer price index (CPI), to which retirees benefits are indexed, overstates the true rate of inflation. However, if the CPI really overstates inflation, then incomes are rising much more rapidly than the official data show; and future generations will be far richer than we could possibly imagine. (If income rises by 4 percent and the inflation rate is 3 percent, then real income has risen by 1 percent. But if our measure of inflation is wrong, and the rate of inflation is just 2 percent, then real income has risen by 2 percent.)
. . . .
Of course, there is a Social Security trust fund that holds more than $2 trillion in government bonds. Under the law, these bonds are to be repaid from general revenue, which comes almost entirely from the personal and corporate income tax. In other words, the bonds held by the Social Security trust fund, which are supposed to pay the Social Security benefits of retired workers, are effectively tax obligations for wealthy people like Mr. Peterson. If the bonds held by the Social Security trust fund are never repaid, Mr. Peterson and/or his heirs could save tens of millions of dollars from their future taxes. It shouldn't be surprising he is trying to convince the public that the trust fund doesn't really exist.
More
http://www.alternet.org/economy/65341/Timothy Geithner, one of Obama's closest advisers was appointed to the top post at the NY Fed by a committee headed by Pete Peterson.
---
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York on October 15, 2003, named Timothy F. Geithner to serve as the Bank's new president and CEO. His appointment by the New York Federal Reserve Bank's Board of Directors was approved by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and announced by Mr. Peter Peterson, chair of the New York Federal Reserve Bank's Board of Directors and of the search committee that selected Mr. Geithner.
. . . .
Mr. Geithner, 42, currently is the director of the Policy Development and Review Department in the International Monetary Fund of Washington, D.C. His department plays a central role in the design and implementation of IMF policies and in the review of its financial programs and assessments of member economies. He joined the IMF in September 2001.
. . . .
"I'm pleased Tim Geithner will be at the helm; he'll do a great job," Mr. Peterson said. "He has done an outstanding job at Treasury and the IMF and is admirably equipped to confront the unique domestic and international challenges that will face our financial system over the coming years."
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4126/is_11_89/ai_111306860/The article is from CBS Money Watch, Nov. 2003
On edit, let's don't forget Obama's Cat Food Commission.
From James Ridgeway published in Mother Jones on April 28, 2010
. . . .
In June, according to the Washington Post, Obama’s deficit commission will be participating in a 20-city electronic town hall meeting, put together by an organization called America Speaks. It is financed by Peterson, along with the MacArthur Foundation and Kellogg Foundation. This is a truly unusual event because it marks the first time a presidential commission’s activities are financed by a private group that has long been lobbying the government on the very subjects the commission is supposed to “study.”
Today's Peterson summit is crammed with luminaries in finance and government. First there’s the keynoter, Bill Clinton. Then there’s Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman widely credited with getting us into our current economic mess, and Paul Volcker, his conservative predecessor at the Fed. Robert Rubin, Clinton’s secretary of the Treasury, and another pillar of the current economic debacle, will speak. So will Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, a leading GOP guru, who among other things wants to replace Medicare with a system of vouchers and tax breaks. Judd Gregg, the senior and probably most important conservative senator when it comes to finance, will be featured as well; he is a keen proponent of Peterson’s entitlement cuts.
. . . .
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/04/pete-petersons-anti-entitlement-juggernaut-gets-fueled-obamaI wonder just when Obama decided that cutting Social Security and Medicare would be a good idea. Has he been tricked into this? Or was this his plan even before he was elected?
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